Baselworld 2013: The complete story

On-the-ground, up-to-the-minute updates on the newest in watches

Welcome to BaselWorld 2013—the confluence of all things horography. We’re live, on the event floor, bringing you a ringside view of this exciting and booming industry (going by all of the action, there’s clearly no sign of any recession here). Live vicariously through our live blog, and drink in the most gorgeous of timepieces this fair has to offer.

Day One (Thursday, 25th April)9:00am: Burberry
GQ’s first appointment for the day, Burberry’s too, on the very first day of the fair meant that we were probably the first among any media to get an exclusive hands-on with a special edition watch from their collection titled The Britain. Inspired by their trench coat collection with gold and titanium worked into the casing, this edition is limited to 50 pieces and is priced at 12,000 Euros. On a side note: the Burberry booth in which we were given this private presentation was designed by Christopher Bailey himself.

10:00am: Raymond Weil
With the intention of establishing a strong connection between music and their timepieces, Raymond Weil’s booth had a distinctive ambience imparted by the assortment of instruments (from a Cello to a Steinway Grand) strewn around the presentation area. This family-owned brand drew inspiration from the timelessly musical theme in creating the new Maestro 4830 watch. The Arabic numerals, case and buckle on this automatic chronograph are all implemented in PVD rose gold. And at 2,495 Swiss Francs, you really don’t need to break the bank to own one of these beauties.

Interestingly, CEO Oliver Bernheim (the son-in-law of Raymond Weil) has two young sons, Ellie and Pierre Bernheim, who have launched their own luxury brand called 88 Rue du Rohne. While they remain an integral part of the Raymond Weil family and management, they are clearly ensuring their new brand does not cannibalise the Raymond Weil brand in any way. So much so that they even had a separate booth on a different floor to showcase products from this new collection.

11:00am: Tissot
When we reached the presentation stall at Tissot, we were perfectly happy with seeing just one watch – the PRS 516 Extreme – a timepiece that we had heard so much about. And we came out satisfied indeed. But there was more. While the new PRS 516 Extreme (that pays tribute to their heritage of racing, this time from the Sixties) is a fantastic automatic chronograph that costs 1,200 Swiss Francs, there was another fantastic piece. If you are one for skeletal dials, you would definitely be envious at this point – after we saw the Extreme, we were shown the new T-Complications Skeleton. Pictured in the slideshow above are both of these watches alongside.

11.45am: Victorinox
Best known for their Swiss army knives, their watches are built to be taken into a battle zone. Endemic to their products is the extra thick bezel and crystal, among other features that add to their tough-as-nails demeanour. Check out this watch from the new collection – quite simply called The Original, it is based on the first watch Victorinox created when they started out making them, although at that time it featured NATO straps. Fast forward to 2013, and The Original collection now flaunts a leather strap and a bulky case. This bulky case is every bit Swiss Army, housing a crystal that reflects light and luminescent hour indicators. And for the rest of us urban gentlemen who would likely never venture anywhere near a battle frontline, there is a detachable protective case and cuff leather bit that enables it to be strapped on as a regular watch.

12:30pm: Chanel
Chanel’s J12 Was meant to be a men’s watch, but ended up being worn more by women. To celebrate its tenth year, check out this 38mm J12 White Phantom limited edition that would look as good on your wife’s hand as it would on yours.

2:30pm: Oris
The Oris Depth Gauge is a great diving watch, not just because it allows you to measure the duration of your dive, but also the dive depth. It is a complicated sensory mechanism for measuring pressure, where water is directed into a cavity constructed into the bezel, which in turn activates numerous components that accurately reflect the current depth. Check out our Twitter timeline for a special Vine video we’ll be uploading, which demonstrates how you can inject water into that cavity to clean it in case the cavity happens to get clogged with dust.

3:30pm: Blancpain
We were shown Blancpain’s 2013 editions of their Fifty Fathoms series and the Minute Repeater, among several other standout timepieces. But the one we had our eyes peeled out for wasn’t part of the showing. Instead, we requested to be shown the piece post the presentation. We are talking about the Fifty X Fathoms – Blancpain’s flagship model. For security reasons though, we weren’t allowed to go hands on with the watch and had to make do with peering at it through a protected glass enclosure. Truth be told, we were more than tempted to break into that glass and yank it right out.

4.30pm: Chopard
An interesting collection at Chopard this year saw the 2013 Millie Miglia edition released alongside the LUC Engine One H. It may be of interest to note here that the President of Chopard, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, participates in the Lille Milia every year in his Ferrari Monza. Regarding the Engine One H that features Chopard’s in-house movement, we’ve written about it earlier. But one of the reasons we’re here in Basel is to get a firsthand, full tactile experience with this particular work of art. And we’re glad to tell you that this it is as incredible as it has been made out to be. See the unusual shape in the picture alongside, with the crown pushed to the top, the power reserve along an empty-full indicator at 9 o’clock and the minute indicators along the bezel made to resemble the speedometer of a car.

Also, we were tempted to take a few quick shots of the deliciously slim profile of the LUC XPS, measuring a svelte 7.13mm thin. We recalled Piaget’s Altiplano line and the Jaeger-LeCoultre Ultra Thin. Only this time around, it is implemented in Chopard’s signature style. The photos convey just how thin these exquisite timepieces really are.

End of day 1
So if you’re tired after a long day at the fair, hop over to Jeffery’s Thai restaurant located right across the street from the Expo. The owner, Mr Jeffery, boasts of having an enviable 1,800 watches in his collection (which is perhaps why he always wears a watch on each wrist). The food is great, and we heeded his advice of ordering mangoes grown locally in Switzerland for dessert (who knew!). But we were not ready to call it a day just yet – we needed to hightail it back to the house in time to watch the Basel versus Chelsea game. And with that, a day steeped in the best of watches comes to a close just as the next awaits.

Day Two (Friday, 26th April)9.30am: Movado Group (Ferrari, Hugo Boss, Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger)
Day 2 of an already exciting show, and our first appointment was with the Movado group – a group that has licensed the Ferrari, Hugo Boss, Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger watch brands. These fashion watches were big on bold colours and playful straps, while keeping most of the collection within the USD 5,000 mark. What caught our fancy most was the Scuderia Ferrari Gran Premio Worldtime Limited Edition (see it in the carousel at the top of the page and in our BaselWorld 2013 Facebook album). It displays the time zones of seven Grand Prix locations, among others. Interestingly, Lacoste showcased a wall of timepieces displayed under their new collection titled – surprise, surprise – “Goa”.

10.30am: Interview with Karl Friedrich Scheufele, President of Chopard
We had a very interesting conversation with the man responsible for growing Chopard into a Titan in the watch industry, and for also driving the production of their in-house movements in their own manufacturing unit that was set up fairly recently. He spoke about his Ferrari Monza that he drives in the Millie Miglia (you’ll find this watch described in our Day 1 coverage), Chopard’s love affair with cinema (in particular the Cannes film festival), and why the Engine One H was actually a selfish interest that actually went on to seeing actual production with its stunning and unusual case design. You’ll be able to soak into more details about these watches and our intriguing conversation in our magazine soon.

12.30pm: Tag Heuer
This is the 50th year of the Carrera, and Tag decided to celebrate with the Carrera Calibre 1887 Jack Heuer edition. If you’ll recall the chronograph stopwatch from the late Nineteenth century that Eduardo Heuer himself designed and patented, you’ll notice the remarkably familiar design reprised in the 2013 Carrera watch. Like the stopwatch, the pushers (made to resemble pistons) and the crowns whose design is distinctly recognisable as being Carrera, are pushed to the top of the watch.

Another interesting introduction from Tag Heuer this year, and also part of their Carrera collection, was the Mikropendulum S, which uses magnets in its movement and more importantly has two tourbillons – one to power the timing function, and the other dedicated to the chronograph function. All this makes for clocking timings down to an accuracy of 1/100th of a second.

But before we left the presentation area, we simply had to see one last watch. Although not part of this year’s collection, Tag happily accepted our request to pull out their Mikrogirder chronograph watch (pictured in the carousel above) that is accurate to, wait for it, 1/2000th of a second. The second hand laps the dial an incredible 20 times a second – a truly stunning piece of engineering.

4.30pm: Ulysse Nardin
Ulysse Nardin has always been renowned for the manufacture of ultra-precise marine chronometers. So it was only expected that they deliver a limited edition marine chronometer this year, which they did. But what we weren’t expecting to see was the Ulysse Nardin Stranger timepiece. Activate it as you would a regular minute repeater, and you will hear a rendition of Strangers in the Night – completely delightful.

6.30pm: Breitling party
Right then. The watch business is serious business. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t throw in a bit of fun. We were invited to the Breitling party at a secret location (the windows of the shuttle service that ferried us to the party were actually obscured with curtains so we couldn’t see where we were being taken to). If you’re waiting to read more about the party and what we were up to there, forget about it. It was epic to the proportions where we will borrow and adapt a cliché that must only be reserved for such special occasions: “What happens in Basel, stays in Basel.” ‘nuff said.

Day Three9:00am: Bvlgari
Tag Heuer’s former chief, Jean Cristophe Babin, will shortly be taking over as CEO of Bvlgari watches – perhaps a move expected to drive Bvlgari’s standing as a serious watchmaker northwards. For the time being they already have several heavyweights in their line-up with the Gerald Genta Tourbillon Saphir (you’ll remember we showed you a vintage Bvlgari Bvlgari Octo Gerald Genta piece in one of our magazine stories recently), and a couple of cool quarter of a million franc timepieces that have strong references to China specifically and the Far East market in general. But the piece that really caught our attention over all that bling was a back-to-the-basics 2013 Bvlgari Roma piece (shown above) which is a tribute to the original 1975 Roma watch –the first watch designed by the Bvlgari brothers to gift their friends.

11.15am: Rolex
Rolex does a few novelties each year, but they do each one well. This year, it was the GMT Master II (shown above) with a scratch-proof bezel partly in blue and partly in black, the Yacht Master II (pictured here) chronograph with a very sporty all-blue bezel and contrasting white dial, that more importantly includes Regatta movement. The most impressive of the lot though was the 36mm Day-Date Perpetual in green (also shown here). Why, you ask? In a line: Because no one quite dyes green like Rolex does.

12:00pm: Lunch with Sascha Moetri (CEO of Carl F Bucherer)
The energetic and charismatic Sascha, was brimming with confidence when we met him over lunch. There were several reasons why he seemed so excited, among them being that Carl F Bucherer has successfully completed 125 years while remaining an independent family-owned brand that has resisted the temptation to be taken over by any one of the numerous watch conglomerates. Another reason could be that Bucherer only recently brokered a multi-million dollar deal with the Sultan of Oman to provide him with 45 diamond-studded watches dressed up in the colour of Oman’s flag, each priced at approximately 1 lakh Swiss Francs. But the real reason for his confidence, we suspect, was because Bucherer is now treading new ground and collaborating with powerhouses of the likes of Audemars Piguet to release their stunning new tourbillon (shown above).

1:00pm: Interview with Marc Hayek
The man at the helm of three of the biggest brands in the Swiss watch making industry – Jaquet-Droz, Breguet and Blancpain – was candid about the challenges that the Swiss watch industry is facing in China, why mechanical watches have already lost the race for accuracy to Quartz watches, and also how the mechanical watch has outgrown the need for being an accurate timekeeping device altogether. Stay tuned for our full interview which will appear subsequently in our magazine.

2:00pm: Seiko
This year’s big deal was the refreshed 2013 line of the Astron GPS Solar watch. It automatically calibrates your location by beaming a signal to a satellite and will adjust the time on your watch accordingly.

3:00pm: Rado
Black and ceramic, if referred to in the same sentence, must necessarily allude to the word Rado. This year, Rado have added some gold to the mix, and what we have is a Hyperchrome Glam Slam (pictured here) with a black ceramic strap and bezel, and a gold-finished dial.

4:00pm: Harry Winston
Truth be told, at first glance an untrained eye would find it nearly impossible to read the time on the Opus XIII (pictured above). Check out our Vine video for help figuring it out here. But it is absolutely imperative to add here that if telling the time is the only reason you’re investing in a luxury mechanical watch, then you’re doing so for the wrong reason.

4.30pm: Breitling
We had an epic time at Breitling’s party from the night before, but it was now time to check out their timepieces. The two exciting introductions for this year is the Breitling Emergency 2 (here worn by Breitling Vice President Jean-Paul Girardin). The concept of an Emergency watch is that you can activate a distress radio signal from your watch that will be picked up via satellites and routed to regional rescue organisations for assistance. First introduced in 1995, it has managed to save dozens of lives since. The 2013 version has two antennas now: the bigger one can emit a more powerful signal, while the smaller antenna will emit shorter bursts of radio waves that will also draw a lesser amount of power from the watch. There’s a special dock (pictured here) to place the watch on, much like a mobile dock, which recharges the watch’s battery. Also interesting in this year’s collection is the Breitling for Bentley watch, which celebrates a ten-year partnership between Breitling and Bentley, while featuring Breitling’s in-house B06 movement. The car and watch have indeed come a long way over the last decade.

5.30pm: Interview with Patrick Hoffman (CEO of Ulysse Nardin)
Hoffman, who has been with the company for about 17 years, spent 12 of those years working directly under the late Rolf Schynder. In our interview, Hoffman reiterated how being an independent brand allows them freedom to innovate, and reiterated their intention to stay that way. Stay tuned for the interview which will appear in our magazine.

6:00pm: Longines
Although we predict that their Conquest Classic (shown above) from their Watchmaking Tradition family will be a popular choice in India with its use of gold on the bezel and strap, we were really kicked by two other watches. The first was their chronograph from their Sports collection that features a fly back chronograph, date display, and a small seconds sub dial as well. The second was their Military Heritage, part of their Heritage family, which features two times zones, a date display and a neat arrangement where a synthetic material is overlaid onto the leather on the strap.

Day Four10:00am: Jaquet-Droz
Our first meeting on the fourth day of this exciting show began with a brand that has mastered automation. Case in point is their Bird Repeater which we presented to you recently. Take a look here at an ultra-exclusive version of it, the Bird Repeater in diamonds and white gold. Only one of these watches will be produced, and it already has been spoken for. The price of this extravagant piece, if that’s what’s on your mind, is 800,000 Swiss Francs. Another great timepiece on show here, which is still a concept at this stage, is the Charming Bird (pictured here) scheduled to be released in 2014. Apart from the automation bit, the bird on the dial will itself emit a chirping sound.

12:00pm: Hublot
By now, you’re well aware of the La Ferrari – Ferrari’s latest and greatest steed that was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show last month. Now have a look at the Hublot La Ferrari (pictured above), which looks every bit a fitting tribute to this hypercar. Of course, you’ll have to drop Rs 14 lakh to buy one, but such things are insignificant when you’re in the running for the La Ferrari itself. And if you’re considering turning to the stock markets to raise the said capital, the new Hublot Cash maps six major stock exchanges on its dial (no, the BSE/NSE is not one of them) to help bring sanity to a dynamic portfolio.

1:00pm: Zenith
When Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space, he had a Zenith timepiece on his wrist. That particular one is kept in a case in his home, but Zenith’s Stratos Flyback collection pays tribute to that watch. But the other watch that also caught our attention, and keeps with the theme of staying a couple of thousand feet off terra firma, is the Type 20 Pilot’s watch (pictured here) that sports a distinctively large 48mm case.

2:30pm: Omega
Although Omega focused on their women’s collection this year, they didn’t entirely forget about the gentlemen. This year, we have the Constellation and Speedmaster. In the Constellation (pictured here), a dressy watch from omega, the roman numerals are etched onto the bezel itself in addition to gold hour markers on the dial. With the new Speedmaster, there’s the familiar arrangement of the sub dials on the main dial and the scratch-proof bezel hewn completely from ceramic.

5:00pm: Corum
The update to the existing Admiral’s Cup family is here, well almost. We were shown the 45mm AC-One (pictured here) which will be released later this year and will feature a regatta movement. But the bigger news from Corum is their updated Bridges collection. The Ti-Bridge Automatic Dual Winder will be a completely automatic watch, as opposed to the outgoing model which wasn’t. It has one of the most distinctive case shapes, with a good part of its movement exposed from the dial itself.

6:00pm: Breguet
GQ’s last appointment for the day, and our last for BaselWorld 2013 too, was with Breguet. A pioneer in mechanical watches, there were two pieces that proved to be a fitting conclusion to our time at BaselWorld 2013. The first was the La Musical (pictured here), priced at about Rs 50 lakh, plays a Bach piece each time you trigger the mechanism. But the show stopper was undoubtedly, the Tourbillon Extra Thin. We saw Piaget and JaegerLe-Coultre go down the anorexic route at the SIHH earlier this year, and many watchmakers offer tourbillons too. But for Breguet to build a tourbillon into a case just 7mm thick is a stellar achievement indeed.

Which brings us to a wrap, gentlemen. Basel World 2013 proved to be grounds for a bevy of new timepieces, and we urge you to check out the complete, high-resolution photos on our exclusive Facebook Album. And look forward to more in-depth coverage on this fair in our magazine soon.